Broadcasters Hope to Avert Disclosure Requirements at OMB
TV stations hope FCC requirements that they provide it with a wider array of information on programming will be blocked by the Office of Management and Budget, said broadcast lawyers. NAB, state broadcast groups, Disney, Fox and others filed comments to the FCC late Monday saying the so-called enhanced disclosure rules run afoul of the Paperwork Reduction Act. The broadcasters hope that the OMB, which reviews all agencies’ documentation requirements, will decide the FCC’s rules run afoul of the act and block them, or that the agency will decide not to submit the rules to OMB for review and thus scuttle the rules, the lawyers said.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
NAB said the rules violate the act because FCC Form 355, where stations must list quarterly every show aired, is ambiguous and not understandable. It would take 2.6 million total hours a year to meet the documentation requirements, which include posting public inspection files online, NAB said. That works out to 21.5 hours a station weekly, compared with the agency’s estimate of 2.1 hours, it said. “The commission has radically understated the information collection burdens by more than 1,000 percent,” the group said. “To avoid a premature and potentially unnecessary OMB review process, the commission should decline to submit these requirements to OMB for approval” until NAB’s appeal of the order is resolved.
The FCC is reviewing the petitions for reconsideration, a spokesman said in an e-mail. “However, it is important that broadcasters meet the needs and interests of their local audiences. Our Enhanced Disclosure rules are in place to allow the public to better monitor how broadcasters are fulfilling this public interest obligation.”
Broadcasters continue to turn to the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia Circuit to try to get thrown out the order, approved by commissioners in November (CD Nov 28 p3 Special Bulletin). ABC and its affiliates group sued the commission Monday and asked the court to set aside the rules, calling them unconstitutional. “The order is not supported by substantial evidence,” Disney said.
Some believe that OMB review of the disclosure rules may offer the best -- and quickest -- route to getting the obligations scaled back. The OMB will review the FCC’s summary of broadcaster filings to the agency and may itself seek comments, industry attorneys said. “We want them to get it thrown out, because there is no reason for it,” broadcast lawyer Vincent Curtis said. “I think this is the best way to attack it.” This week’s filings to the commission will be used by an office “that is ’sufficiently independent’ to make a fair evaluation” to “certify to the OMB that the new regs satisfy the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act,” said John Hane, representing the state broadcasters.
The FCC’s estimate that compliance will cost the industry $11.6 million annually is “incongruous,” said a filing by the state broadcasters. It assumes that station employees are paid $5.60 hourly, 25 cents below the federal minimum wage, it said. An NAB study found stations pay $33 an hour on average, the broadcasters said. “Real world labor conditions are flatly inconsistent with the FCC’s assumed costs, and the information collection and reporting requirements will impose many additional costs.”